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Thursday, April 5, 2012

2012 Astros Projections

Before I reveal the numbers, I want to explain how I came up with them. I'll keep it brief.

First, I needed to determine everyone's playing time. For this, I used the depth charts (may be behind a premium content firewall) over at Baseball Prospectus as a guide and adjusted where I felt necessary. Using those percentages and the average number of plate appearances per team last season I arrived at everyone's projected plate appearances. I used a similar idea for the pitchers' innings, again tweaking where I felt best.

Once I had everyone's playing time set, I turned my attention to the rate stats. For the hitters that meant walk rates, strikeout rates, rates of extra base hits, etc. Again, the process was very similar for the pitchers. These rates were derived from a loose averaging of the projections available at Fangraphs and the players career averages. Minor adjustments were made for those with very small major league sample sizes. From there, simple multiplication spit out their projections.

For the W-L record, I simply plugged the projected runs scored and runs against into the Pythagorean win theorem formula and out popped the projected record. Last year our Pythagorean record was 62-100, meaning in theory we under achieved by six wins.

Obviously any major changes in roster make up (trades, injuries, etc) could change things dramatically.

I feel like it's a little optimistic, but I can't find any major errors in the formulas or calculations.

Screw it, I'm running with it!

PA

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

SB

BB

K

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Lee

600

556

70

151

31

1

23

94

2

44

59

0.272

0.326

0.455

0.781

Altuve

578

556

66

160

32

3

5

58

19

22

72

0.287

0.314

0.382

0.696

Martinez

555

517

68

146

33

0

15

86

0

38

109

0.282

0.332

0.435

0.767

Schafer

489

445

60

109

18

3

4

24

23

44

107

0.244

0.312

0.326

0.638

Lowrie

478

434

59

112

30

4

10

61

2

44

82

0.258

0.326

0.417

0.744

Castro

455

410

53

97

19

2

5

46

0

45

81

0.237

0.312

0.332

0.644

Johnson

421

402

39

107

23

3

11

51

3

19

99

0.266

0.299

0.416

0.715

Bogusevic

414

378

51

97

19

2

7

35

10

36

91

0.257

0.322

0.378

0.700

Downs

404

373

46

94

30

0

13

52

1

31

77

0.251

0.308

0.438

0.746

Shuck

298

268

37

72

9

3

1

10

8

30

33

0.268

0.343

0.332

0.675

Ruggiano

297

278

35

70

13

0

9

33

5

19

75

0.250

0.297

0.398

0.695

Snyder

270

235

26

54

11

0

9

34

0

35

62

0.228

0.328

0.390

0.718

Gonzalez

270

256

29

68

13

2

2

23

4

14

35

0.265

0.303

0.357

0.661

Buck

231

213

25

51

13

2

6

25

2

18

46

0.241

0.300

0.399

0.700

Wallace

165

152

16

39

9

0

3

13

0

13

39

0.257

0.317

0.389

0.706

F. Martinez

164

154

17

36

8

0

3

14

3

10

34

0.231

0.278

0.339

0.617

Sanchez

61

57

7

15

2

0

0

5

0

4

9

0.256

0.307

0.309

0.616

Team Totals

6150

5683

706

1475

315

26

127

662

82

467

1110

0.260

0.316

0.391

0.707

So, how does the offense compare to last season? Well, that would give us 91 more runs scored, 32 more home runs, 66 more walks, 54 fewer strikeouts, and an OPS .023 higher than last year. To put it another way, these projections would give us an essentially league average offense. At first glance only Carlos Lee's numbers look especially optimistic to me.

How about the pitchers?

IP

G

W

L

SV

H

HR

BB

SO

R

ER

ERA

WHIP

W. Rodriguez

180

32

12

10

0

178

20

62

156

85

76

3.80

1.33

Norris

170

30

10

9

0

166

20

69

164

87

77

4.07

1.38

Happ

140

28

8

7

0

130

17

66

113

73

68

4.39

1.40

Weiland

120

34

6

9

0

127

18

54

79

67

64

4.81

1.51

Lyles

120

26

5

7

0

137

16

34

86

67

62

4.62

1.42

Harrell

120

49

5

5

0

163

8

64

83

78

63

4.70

1.89

Myers

70

52

4

3

23

70

9

22

56

34

32

4.06

1.31

Lopez

70

66

3

4

0

76

6

16

52

32

28

3.64

1.30

Sosa

70

13

4

6

0

71

9

30

51

37

37

4.75

1.44

Carpenter

60

50

2

6

7

61

7

27

57

28

28

4.23

1.46

F. Rodriguez

60

54

2

3

0

59

7

32

60

31

29

4.31

1.51

Lyon

50

40

3

3

7

53

5

19

34

25

23

4.20

1.43

A. Rodriguez

45

23

1

3

0

44

6

18

35

27

23

4.65

1.38

Wright

40

43

2

2

0

39

5

18

37

20

18

4.15

1.41

Abreu

40

42

2

2

12

36

5

19

51

16

16

3.68

1.37

Abad

40

53

1

5

0

43

7

13

30

23

21

4.75

1.41

Cruz

35

27

1

2

0

36

5

33

27

26

24

6.18

1.98

Del Rosario

20

21

0

1

0

24

1

7

10

12

10

4.53

1.58

Team Totals

1450

49

1513

171

601

1179

770

700

4.34

1.46

Nothing here really stands out as unlikely to me. Maybe Happ's numbers are too good, but that's actually very close to his career averages. It's very possible one or more relievers is particularly ineffective this year, but who? And if so, they wouldn't get many innings anyway. So again, how does that stack up to last year's squad? We're looking at a team ERA just 0.17 better as they only give up 26 fewer runs that last year. Walks are up by 41 and strikeouts are down by 12. This squad does allow 17 fewer homers, according to my projections. To again frame these projections against last year's competition a 4.34 ERA would have only put us ahead of one other team.

So, assuming my math is correct, 706 runs scored and 770 runs against would give us a projected team record of..............

74-88!

Yes, I question my own sanity for actually publishing that, but there it is. Led by a potentially much improved offense it is entirely possible that the Astros will finish not last in 2012.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I actually think some of your projections are too low to be honest. Altuve had 12 walks in just spring so 22 for the year seems wrong. Snyder should have over 9 HR too. I honestly think you will see Shafer hit more in the .270 range this year too with more like 8-9 HR. He was hitting almost .400 in Spring and worked out like crazy in the Winter. Castro will hit better then .237 as well more like .250.

As far as the pitchers I think one of the young guys will break out with an under 4.00 Era as well, it is just hard to say which.

Overall I think we will see some guys falter like you have shown, but at least 1 pitcher and hitter breakout this season. I would bet on Schafer and Weiland if they stay healthy.

Bryan, Bryan, Bryan...if you question your sanity, it's likely you'd jump ship and go cheer for another team, so just go with it.

Like your previous poster, I think some of the offensive predictions are a little on the low side. But then again, I agree with you that Lee's numbers look higher than I would expect.

If this team wins over 70 games, it's the World Series....and I think that is ENTIRELY possible this year.

I'm woo'ed by stats as much as the next girl, but what they can't account for is the heart and passion of a young team. CJ's realization that to get results like his rookie year he has to work his ass off. JD Martinez commitment to overcoming his early lackluster scouting reports. These are kids determined to prove themselves in this sport. You can't factor that in a stats projection, but wow, can it make a difference.

I think this team supprises ppl....I think lee will be over 100 rbi this yr (prob not all with Hou). Altuve looks to have worked hard to improve walks and jd may not be a star but he still drives in runs. Should get triple the production from catchers and cj looks focused and determined to prove himself....lopez is gunna be a stud out of rhe pen and Norris prob will have a solid yr I'm saying 10-13 wins and 7-10 losses...

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